Interactivity is a word that has, in many people’s views, been overapplied to new media without being given a solid definition. Just from what we read this week I’d say that definition is still in flux, but also perhaps that different conceptions of interactivity bring up some very different ways of thinking about the project on our hands, namely ARGs.
Ian Bogost defines interactivity in video games as a computer-generated “environment that is both procedural and participatory”, “meaningfully responsive” to the player’s actions (42). This is a fairly common sense definition of interactivity; I came to a similar definition of my own from growing up playing games. It’s also easy to see how it could be applicable, and bent to the goals of game design. There are different types and levels of interactivity, mediated by controls and platforms, that can be employed to produce a sensation appropriate to the given game. The horror game Amnesia, for example, requires players to “grab” and then “pull” to manually open doors and move objects, creating a more visceral experience and heightening the sense of tension and anxiety produced by the other design aspects of the game. But this kind of physical presence isn’t necessary in historical sim games like Civilizations or the Anno series, which instead give the player a more all-seeing godlike perspective in which they can place or strike down whole structures instantaneously.
How does this apply to ARGs? A system of interaction is already built into some of our biggest game spaces: the physical world, and the social world. Both of these systems will be responsive in some way to all actions players take in them, so the goal of design for these spaces should be to make that change meaningful. I think we touched on this a bit on Thursday, in discussing how segments should have clear beginnings and ends. If players have completed a puzzle by playing a song, or taping something together, or performing a piece, that will obviously have an effect on the world and on the other players; the challenge is making it feel like it matters.
Upton, in his challenge to the concept of interactivity, chooses to blur the lines between the player and the game, describing a system of internal constraints that exist only in the player’s mind, and that shape the game as much as its external constraints (the possibility space allowed by the game itself) (27). “Encouraging the formation of an interesting set of internal constraints in the mind of the player” is as important or more important than just making mechanics that feel good and a world that responds meaningfully to player actions (Upton 30). Gameplay in this model is centered on the player, who learns how the game world works by experimenting and experiencing safe failure, “internalizing a set of external constraints” that are afterwards rarely required to force a particular kind of (inter)action (Upton 29).
To bring this back once again to ARGs, I think this sort of design goal would be important in creating a sense of deep immersion in the game world of the ARG. For example, one may learn through experimentation and context clues that literal approaches to certain types of puzzles are best; if there is some sort of in-universe reason for why this should be so that supports the overall coherence and depth of the game world, this constraint, once internalized, would help to create a type of common sense or literacy for the ARG. “Well we could interpret it that way, but this puzzle was written in red, and it came to us from this character, so it just makes sense that we should solve it this way.” Use of or subversion of “real world” common sense can also play into this, as can literacies associated with other media. This internalized approach also contributes to a sense of growing mastery in the game that would help keep players engaged in future challenges by making those challenges feel less daunting than they might have otherwise. One challenge I can foresee is that, with large numbers of players, designing in this way might make it hard for players to change focus to different types of puzzles or to participate successfully if they have missed bits of key information. Regardless, there is a lot that can be learned from the different ways interactivity has been thought about; these two authors are just scratching the surface.
-Ellis
Works Cited
Bogost, Ian. “Procedural Rhetoric.” Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2007. 1-64. Print.
Upton, Brian. “Interactivity.” The Aesthetic of Play. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2015. 23-38. Print.
ALTERNATE REALITY GAMES 
Hi Ellis,
I really liked your discussion of interactivity and how using in-universe reasoning can be especially helpful in solving puzzles.
I was also intrigued by the question of what to do in game when key pieces are missing from a player’s knowledge of the universe. I think this can happen for any number of reasons (e.g., they weren’t able to participate in a certain puzzle or activity at the time it took place, a lack of effective communication between players or a lack of effective record-keeping of previous gameplay, they didn’t solve a puzzle correctly, etc.) but it can be a huge hindrance to player participation and could effectively dampen any attempts at evolving game literacy as well as making the game much harder to solve as a whole. I am reminded of the game designed for our class that we played; many people, for whatever reason, were not always able to partake in the puzzles and challenges laid out for everyone so their specific game literacy decreased. And for this particular game, the individual’s lack of game understanding was a detriment to the collective group of players because some puzzles required the participation and input of all classmates.
I think this is a word of warning to puppetmasters and to ourselves as future ARG game designers: it’s difficult to design a solvable game when each player is needed. I think it’s a good goal to try to include as many players of your target audience as possible but not everyone will participate as we’ve seen in other ARGs so designing more for various skills rather than for actual people might ensure that gameplay continues even if players drop and game literacy decreases.
Hi Ellis!
I think you’re completely right about needing to consider players’ internal constraints with ARGs. ARGs present an interesting interaction– players will bring in internal constraints both from real life and from other forms of gaming, just because, more than any other form of gaming, ARGs are the perfect blend between the two. For example, in the ARG modules that we had the class play through on Thursday, there were internal constraints from both spheres present in the ways the players interacted with the games. For ours (the one that ended up unsolved), possibly the reason that it did not go as planned is because we did not take into account the internal rules that players would bring into the game with them. The deconstructed letters on the sheets were meant to be manually constructed. The players had the idea to hold the papers up to the light to reconstruct the letters– this is an idea stemming, not from past video game experience, but from real life and the knowledge of how light works. Had it occurred to me, I probably would’ve written the letters to line up with each other. However, then, drawing from knowledge of video games, the players assumed it was not a mistake or an oversight on the part of the designer, but rather that they had the wrong idea, so they moved onto other solutions for how to construct the letters, assuming they had it wrong, when really they had the right idea and just had to carry it out in a much more frustrating way. There’s a reason we keep being told to play test things– we as designers might be so caught up in what our idea is for the game that we’ll forget to look at it with the internal rules of logic that a player might use.
Sarah